Goodbye.

The Further Adventures of Max Payne

Day in the Life of Max Payne

Pulp Fortress

Low Effort Sequels

God, it's like they're not even trying anymore.

Thanks to the goons at Somethingawful.com

E3 Butt Awards

We Can Dance If We Want To

I really need to finish this game.

Steam Punk Metroid?

Sure, ok.

You've Been Good Today

Have some Dark Souls, you earned it.

Microsoft is Also Stupid

Fuck you Jaison that show was good.

Moving Up in the World

Just wanted to report that recently my guild in Tera was mentioned in an article on Kotaku. Yeah we're kind of a big deal. I'm not going to link it though because nobody should visit kotaku voluntarily. Just don't do it!

That Explains A Lot

No wonder Jaison failed at Mass Effect 3.

The Gurlz Take on E3

Oh God Oh Yes

In Soviet Russia, pig eat you! Hahaha god damn I am clever.Seriously though this game is going to rule so hard.

Hard Truths

We're not trolls! We tell it like it is. We shoot from the hip, we...yeah ok we're trolls.



Lest you think we're biased, rest assured Microsoft is equally retarded in their own special way.

I'm Rick James!

I quickly learned a very important lesson in this game. Leave the mushrooms alone.

Lewis, Destroyer of Worlds

This is my guy in Tera. He is a dog with a pirate hat and an eye patch. That is all.

Tera Your Face Off

I am sure everyone has been wondering lately, what ever happened to that Big D fellow? What's that? You haven't? Oh....ok. Well anyway, I recently started playing the new MMO Tera. The same MMO Tera that IGN recently shit upon, as is their wont. Well I am here to set the record straight. Not that it really needs to be set, straight or otherwise. Nobody gives a shit what IGN thinks. Especially not me. Moving on...

I haven't played many other MMOs, besides Final Fantasy XI, a bit of vanilla WoW, and some LOTRO after it went free to play. So my frame of reference may be a bit skewed. But from what I have played so far, I am really enjoying the game for a number of reasons. First of all being: It's beautiful. Say what you want about some of the design choices, this game running on max settings looks absolutely gorgeous at times. Better than you would expect an MMO to look and still run smoothly. The aesthetic of the game is....distinctly Korean. What does that mean? Well it's sort of anime, and sort of I don't know what the fuck. Devil chicks with giant racks, half naked dudes, creepy looking little girl...animal...things, fat raccoon men. It's like they threw everything Jaison hates into a blender and just barfed it up all over the place.

I have to say though I love some of the monster designs in the game. Which is important because you will be fighting a fucking ton of them. People bitch a lot about how boring and grindy the quests in the game are, but honestly it doesn't seem any worse to me than any RPG ever. Definitely no worse than Diablo 3 (Which IGN gave a 9.5 by the way...not that I care). I think the only difference is that there are so many of them. Every place you go to has tons of quests, and all of them give money and exp as rewards. I'm level 25, and so far I have never had to go grind exp. You're just constantly getting quests to kill stuff, collect doodads or escort guys. The game it reminds me of the most is Borderlands. You just *click click* *Follow quest marker* *Kill stuff, get reward*

The questing in general seems very casual, and I have never had a problem finding people to help. Maybe the grind comes later, but so far everything has been very streamlined and fun. The story is equal parts incoherent and forgettable, so if that's your thing you might want to play The Old Republic instead, you nerd.

Most people have said the one thing Tera does exceptionally well is combat. And they are right. It is so god damned fun. More fun than pretty much any MMO ever. Each class gets tons of skills, most of which are actually useful. The first time I tanked a huge BAM (Big Ass Monster; the game's terminology, not mine) I was hooked. It is seriously intense. When you actually win, you feel like it was because of your skill not just because you had the best gear. Speaking of the best gear, there seems to be a lot of good gear available through quests. Even though you can get some awesome stuff by fighting bosses, you'll accumulate plenty of good kit just by progressing through the game.

In short, so far I am really having a great time with Tera. It's a fun, fast and somewhat casual MMO. I think a lot of people (Like IGN) are being too hard on it for not having as much content as other MMOs. Pretty much every MMO ever has sucked at launch, and it takes time for more content to get added and balance adjustments to be made. I don't think it's going to topple WoW any time soon, but if you're looking for something a little different it might be worth your time.

Listen to the Fat Man

Seriously though, it's kind of ridiculous to force people to be connected online to play when your own servers won't even work. And they wonder why people pirate this shit.

What Time is it?

AAAADVEN....oh never mind. It's Skyrim time.

The Dark Lebowski

Fuck it Ornstein, let's go bowling.

Pimp My Diablo 3

Like everyone else in the world, I naturally caved to peer pressure and bought Diablo 3 yesterday. If you're incredibly anal and whiney like me, then the muddled graphics and abundance of color probably aren't doing it for you. Well fear not! There's a mod I was just made aware of called Darker D3 that allows you to customize your level of grim darkness, as well as sharpen the graphics up nicely.

A Game of Game of......Thrones?

This actually looks...kind of good. I'm glad they're telling their own story instead of following the plot of the books/show. It still looks a little rough around the edges though. I'm giving it a pre-emptive 7.0

Fantasy vs Reality

It's comforting to know that we all have one thing in common; the fact that we're disgusting slobs.

Dragon's Dogma Looks Awesome

Exhibit A


This game is going to kick copious amounts of ass. If you haven't tried the demo yet, I would highly recommend doing so now.

All You Haters

Peacock is such a boss. Must buy Skullgirls at some point...

What Have I Been Playing

Sorry for the lack of decent content lately (Just kidding, our content was never decent), lately I've been plugging away at a few games that are consuming the majority of my free time. I had intended to write about each one individually, but first of all I'm lazy and second of all those Scoia'tael ain't save themselfs. So this is what you get instead. I'm sorry.

Shadows of the Damned

I picked this up for $25 a few weeks ago and really like it so far. I'd say I'm around 2/3 of the way through it, and while it might not re-invent the genre, it's still one hell of a good time. See, I said that...because...hell....and the game...nevermind. The core mechanics are good, not stellar, but still fun. Shooting and moving around feels somewhere between Resident Evil and Dead Space. Levels are linear with some light puzzles, and boss fights are fun even if they drag on a bit sometimes. It's the game's excellent presentation and bizarre sense of humor that set it apart though. This depiction of hell is truly twisted and grotesque, while the banter between Garcia and Johnson (His transforming penis-gun) adds a layer of goofy humor to it. Despite some annoying sections and having to sit through a loading screen when you die, the game moves along pretty briskly and it's kept me wanting to play more each time.

Overall, I really enjoy the game because of how bizarre and entertaining it is. But for a game of this length without much incentive to replay, I still don't think it would have been worth $60 to me. At $25 however, it was a Damned good deal...haha....because...the name.....moving on.



Sine Mora

Bought this one on XBLA for 1200 points. It's a side-scrolling shooter, which I'm not usually that into but after playing the demo I enjoyed it enough that I picked it up anyway. People have said that this is the best shooter in recent years, and I am inclined to agree mostly because I don't even remember any other shooters from recent years. The action is pretty standard. Weapon power-ups, super weapons, big bosses at the end of each level. You can slow down time, but you get so little of that power that you pretty much have to save it for emergencies.

The story is pretty interesting for a game like this. It's very dark and emotional at times. Sadly it's too hard to follow, which causes it to lose a lot of it's impact. Having all the voice-overs in Hungarian, while cool, doesn't do it any favors in the sense-making department. Overall, I had a good time with this game but I don't know if it was worth 1200 points. 800 would make it a must-buy though.



Fez

Also got this one on XBLA, for 800 points! At this price it is definitely a must-buy. If you like platforming, or exploring, or just quirky fun games that don't involve shooting nazis then you should play Fez. It looks great, is easy to learn, and some of the later puzzles will make you feel like a fucking genius when you finally solve them. The only thing I am not big on is the soundtrack. I'm sure they were going for 'catchy', but to my awful tasteless ears it's kind of grating and I have to turn the volume down so it doesn't annoy me too much.



The Witcher 2

I picked up the enhanced edition of Witcher 2 on 360 after hearing Jaison bitching about how he couldn't make it work on PC. I'll be honest, I didn't really like the game at first. The combat is clunky and frustrating at times, and I didn't know what the hell was going on or why I should care. After soldiering on for a couple hours, the game finally got its hooks into me and I started enjoying it a lot more. I'm not even really sure why.

The story is starting to make more sense, and while I won't pretend the writing is good, it's entertaining enough that I can just go with it and enjoy it. Some of the banter between characters is pretty hilarious. Apparently these games are based off books, which makes sense as the world actually seems pretty fleshed out. It sort of reminds me of Game of Thrones in that there is more focus on political intrigue and conflicts between ruling families than saving the world from dragons or The Dark Lord.

I also appreciate the sort of neutral stance the game takes on morality. There's no good and evil meter, karma points or other contrivance to reward or penalize you based on your actions. Killing someone might result in a greater reward, while leaving them alive may come back to bite you later on. Seeing these moral quandaries play out is incredibly entertaining and very much affects the way you play the game. There are some very difficult choices to be made, and you will often find yourself second-guessing them.

There are tons of quests in the game, and while a lot of them are pretty standard "Kill the monsters, clear the dungeon" ordeals, there always seems to be enough of an over-arching goal that it doesn't bog you down too much. There are so many things to craft, and equipment to buy that is actually useful. Combat is hard enough that you'll actually want to get the best items and weapons you can before taking on that next boss monster.

In the end, Witcher 2 is still pretty rough around the edges; with bugs, clunky interface and some of the worst save checkpoints ever devised. If you can tolerate that, it's fantasy junk-food at it's finest. Like a never-ending bag of black pepperjack doritos. It may leave you with the shits, but it's worth every minute of it.

Gonna Play the Hell Out of This

A Sad But True Story

Pic of the Day

Someone Call a Plumber?

No but you can stay anyway and "Work on my plumbing" if you know what I mean. Then you can "Retrieve the 3 sets of car keys I accidentally flushed down my toilet" if you know what I mean.

Let's talk about Fez

I finally got a chance to play the demo of this long awaited XBLA exclusive last week. If you're like Jaison and you still don't know what Fez is, shame on you! Google it, I'm not doing your homework for you. Anyway I was thoroughly impressed by it. Very much reminded of the old NES and SNES games I would spend hours trying to figure out where the hell to go. In this case I didn't really mind though as I was having such a good time just exploring. Fez is a very well made game.

Almost as entertaining as the game itself is the controversy surrounding it, or the creator anyway. Apparently last month at GDC when asked what he though of current-gen Japanese games Phil Fish replied "Your games just suck." You can imagine the internet shitstorm that erupted over that comment. On twitter, he responded by telling one of his critics to choke on his dick. He also responded to people who said they would pirate his game out of spite with "Gamers are the worst f*cking people." I guess what I am saying is this guy is my hero.

When Less is More

This great article popped up on the Penny Arcade Report recently, regarding the sometimes crazy Steam sales and how the platform's generally lower pricing structure affects revenue for developers. The conclusions are surprising to say the least.

When you think about it though, it does make a lot of sense. Pricing games below the impulse-buy threshold often means people will buy them just because they are cheap. Hell I've got a ton of games in my Steam library that aren't even installed yet. I just got them because they were too cheap to pass up. I'm sure pretty much everyone else on Steam has a similar story.

I think that going forward, we'll only see Steam continue to dominate on PC even though other companies are trying hard to rip it off (Eat a dick, Origin!). With so many publishers trying to nickle and dime their customers over everything, gamers are more than happy to give more money to a company that decides to throw them a freaking bone every now and then.

The opportunities for indie developers are also endless. I'd never even heard of Jamestown before it cropped up on a Steam sale. After brow-beating Jaison into it, he also picked the game up on Steam. He hasn't even played it yet! Between this and kick-starter funded game projects, it could be the beginning of a huge shift in the way the industry works. And it's going to be better for everyone.

Does this mean $60 Triple-A releases, Online passes, Day-one DLC and all the associated bullshit is going to become a thing of the past? Not a chance. They're still going to be the standard for a long time to come. But as the saying goes, when a door closes a window opens. And if this means that we're going to see a lot more quirky, inventive, fun games made by passionate developers then I'm very excited to see what the future holds.

We Have A Winner

There you go nerds, finally someone worthy of your company. But does she know the difference between the PC Engine and the Turbo Grafx-16? Huh? HUH?!

A Fun Activity

It's finally time to stop posting hilarious videos and bring you some real original content. Yaaay. Here is a fun activity that I thought up today at work. It's so simple the whole family can enjoy it.

Basically you take the title of your favorite video game and replace one of the words with the word 'boner'. It's hilarious! Here are some examples I came up with:

Super Mario Boner
Resident Boner 4
Super Street Boner
God of Boner
Bonershock Infinite
Bonerlands 2
Bonerfield Bad Company
Assassin's Boner
Boner Effect 3
The Witcher 2 : Boner of Kings
Boner May Cry HD COllection
Boner Trigger
Zombies Ate My Boner
Super Punch-Boner
The Boner of Zelda: A Link to the Boner
Metal Gear Solid 3 Boner Eater
Bonerman: A Pick and Flick Adventure (gross!)
Super Boner Kart 64
Monster Boner Portable
Final Boner 7
Boner of the Colossus
Angry Boners
A Boy and His Boner

There's plenty more where that came from. Let us know what you come up with!

Look Around You - Computer Games

Legend of Grimrock

No, not the dinobot. I'm talking about the awesome looking First-Person RPG by indie developer Almost Human. It's coming out next Wednesday so mark your freaking calendars!



Will we ever post anything besides videos? Maybe......Some day....

Bioware Gives Fans What They Want

>

Holy crap I love these guys.

Sad But True

Skyrim the Musical

I would have probably enjoyed the game more if it was like this.

Kid Got Game

I never got fifty-thousand on anything. God I am such a failure.

Bioware Owns Nerds with Charity

In case you haven't had enough of people not shutting up about Mass Effect 3's ending, this news story is pretty hilarious. If you're averse to reading anything on MSNBC (And why wouldn't you be?), the gist of it is that a bunch of whiny babies paid $1000 to have some cupcakes sent to Bioware in some kind of passive-aggressive protest against Mass Effect 3's ending. Bioware promptly gave them all to a local youth shelter, as an equally symbolic "Fuck you!" gesture. The ethics of using charity as a way of getting back at people are open for debate, but the whole story struck me as pretty hilarious. Go Bioware!

I think I speak for all of us when I say shut the hell up you dweebs. It's a video game, jesus christ. I can count the number of games I've played which had decent endings on one hand, and that's being really generous. When I was a kid, you were lucky if you got two lines of broken engrish. "Conglaturation... You Have Beaten a Grate Game! Now Go Our Heroe!"

Bitching on the internet is grand tradition, but these stories of people going after developers personally really makes me wonder what is these people's major malfunction. I will never understand the sense of entitlement these 'fans' have, which I guess makes me glad we don't have any. Besides, I was hating Mass Effect before it was cool.

Unfortunate Sticker Placements

Courtesy of The Chive.

Battlefied 3 Metro Advanced Strategy

BF3, putting the FUCK back in clusterfuck.

Get Down and Boogie!

Jaison Makes a Compelling Argument

Games I am looking forward to in 2012

Looking forward in 2012 at the start of the year was pretty depressing. Nothing but sequels and rehashes as far as the eye can see. Much of what's come out so far this year has been pretty mediocre, which makes it even harder to stay optimistic. Here's what I'll probably be playing this year.

Trials Evolution - One of the few games I am really pumped for. The original was excellent and the sequel looks even better.

Witcher 2 (On xbox) - Jaison warned me off the PC version because it was a buggy piece of shit, but the dark fantasy setting looks interesting enough that I still want to give it a try.

Diablo 3 - As I've said before, nothing about this game really turns my crank. But everyone else will be getting it, and I am always down for a co-op lootwhoring click-a-thon. Yaaay peer pressure.

Dragon's Dogma - It's like Monster Hunter meets Dark souls meets Dragon Age and I am totally cool with that. I think this game will be really fun and possibly hard as balls. Bring it!

Tera - Probably the first MMO I will play since FFXI. It looks anime as fuck, but the combat actually looks really fun so I think I can deal with it.

Borderlands 2 - Jaison and I will both be getting this and will play the shit out of it as we did Borderlands 1. This is non-negotiable.

Hawken - The trailers alone were enough to sell me on this game. Yeah I am shallow like that.

Aliens: Colonial Marines - I honestly don't expect this to be anything more than mediocre, but I just can't say no to Aliens.

Amnesia : A Machine for Pigs - I don't know anything about this game, but the first Amnesia was so good that I don't even care. Shut up, take my money, etc.

Counter-Strike Global Offensive - It's been many years since I've played Counterstrike, and I secretly hope that the new version it every bit as bullshit as I remember.

Skullgirls - I don't even know why I want this game but I do. Looks like the developers have put a ton of work into giving it a lot of personality so I feel like I should reward their efforts.

Torchlight 2 - I enjoyed the first one, but never ended up buying it. At this point I feel like I am better off just waiting for the sequel.

Bioshock Infinite - The thing that always annoyed me about these games is that you can't tell what is actual gameplay and what is just BS put together for an E3 demo. Regardless, I enjoyed the first two enough that I'm sure I'll like it.

Fez - It's an interesting 2D/3D platformer that's been in development what seems like fucking forever. I'm sure it won't live up to the hype but it looks good enough to spend my money on.